anal-retentive

adjective

anal-re·​ten·​tive ˈā-nᵊl-ri-ˈten-tiv 

variants or anal retentive

psychoanalytic theory

: exhibiting or typifying personality traits (such as frugality and obstinacy) held to be psychological consequences of toilet training

Overextending psychic energy during the process of toilet training by holding back can result in fixating at the anal stage, creating an anal retentive personality as an adult. The anal retentive personality is characterized by the tendency to cope with conflicts later in life by demonstrating an extreme sense of cleanliness and orderliness, such as dusting furniture or waxing the car when troubled.

—Bernardo J. Carducci

—often used in nontechnical contexts to describe someone as extremely or excessively neat, careful, or precise

… is his father's clone—intense, focused, fuddy-duddy, severely anal-retentive, or as Archie puts it, "a neat freak."

—Curry Kirkpatrick

anal retentive noun

or anal-retentive

plural anal retentives or anal-retentives

Anal-retentives hoping to use PCs to organize their lives …

—The Washington Post

anal retentiveness noun

or anal-retentiveness

… maybe it's my anal retentiveness, my futile attempts to bring order to a chaotic world. Who knows? All I know is there's no more beautiful sight than firewood stacked in long, perfect rows.

—Craig Wilson

Examples of anal-retentive in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But there would be no grease-drinking, Judas-playing Sandy without his anal-retentive best friend, Reuben Feffer. —Sean Malin, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024

Conventional management practices suppress everything that isn’t vine by mowing, tilling, and spraying herbicide with an intensity that ranges from anal-retentive to paranoid. —Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 24 July 2024

One might be forgiven for also thinking that the identification is not so much between the audience and the killer as between Fincher, who is known as something of a filmmaking fusspot, and his anal-retentive central character. —Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 25 Oct. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1936, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

anal-retentive

1 of 2 adjective

anal-re·​ten·​tive

variants or anal retentive

ˈān-ᵊl-ri-ˈten-tiv 

: characterized by personality traits (as frugality and obstinacy) held to be psychological sequelae of toilet training : anal sense 2b

anal retentiveness noun

or anal-retentiveness

anal retentive

2 of 2 noun

variants or anal-retentive

: an anal-retentive individual